The BBC has more on the case that has now been accepted by Turkey’s supreme court: “Turkey’s constitutional court has decided unanimously that it can hear a case aimed at closing down the country’s governing AK Party.” Aside from that, the prosecutor who filed the case also wants the court to ban Erdogan, Gül and 71 other MPs from politics for a number of years.

Interestingly enough, the BBC describes the AK Parti and the opposition as follows:

The case revives a battle between Turkey’s secularist establishment and the AK Party of devout Muslims.

The article is written by someone who either doesn’t know a whole lot of Turks or by someone who only knows AK Parti Turks.

Why do I say that? Because many Kemalists are also devout Muslims. They are devout Muslims in their private lives, but are secularists politically. The two can go together you know.

O, and secularists aren’t per definition the elite. To a degree they are, but many Kemalists are members of the middle class and higher middle class. The base of the AK Parti is, and has always been, the uneducated and poor masses; you know the type: living in the East or migrated to the big cities such as Istanbul, uneducated, poor, women wearing headscarves, and so on.

Anyway:

The AKP (Justice and Development Party) has one month to prepare its initial defence, but it might appeal for an extension.

The case against the AKP runs to 162 pages: a long list of what the chief prosecutor says is proof the government has an Islamic agenda.

Turkish courts have banned more than 20 parties since the 1960s, accusing them of pursuing Islamist or Kurdish separatist agendas.

The AKP argues the case against it is an attack on democracy.

It’s obviously not an attack on democracy; it’s an attack on Islamists. And lets also keep in mind that the AK Parti isn’t a majority party. The AKP won 47% of the votes, that means that the majority were against Erdogan et al. And you also have to keep in mind that many AK Parti voters last year, didn’t vote for it because they agree with Erdogan’s Islamist agenda, but because they thought that he proved in his first term that he was a moderate and that he did wonders for the country’s economy.

But now, now Erdogan has shown his true face. So you can expect support for his party to decrease quite some. But… in the meantime, they’re still in power and able to push through Islamist reforms.

As such, the attempt to shut down the AKP is quite understandable.

Fausta: “The court has decided to consider the case. The future of Turkey hinges on their decision.”